By Gavin Boyle
Roku has officially joined the paid streaming ecosystem with the launch of Howdy, a platform with much of the same content found on Roku’s free channels but without the ads.
“Priced at less than a cup of coffee, Howdy is ad-free and designed to complement, not compete with, premium services,” said Anthony Wood, the CEO and founder of Roku. “We’re meeting a real need for customers who want to unwind with their favorite movies and shows uninterrupted and on their terms. Howdy is a natural step for us at Roku, extending our mission to make better TV for everyone, by making it affordable, accessible, and built for how people watch today.”
Howdy, which is live now, features nearly 10,000 hours of content from a variety of partners including Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery and FilmRise, alongside some Roku Original titles.
“We’re excited to continue our longstanding collaboration with Roku on innovative ways to connect with audiences,” said Jim Packer, the president of worldwide television distribution at Lionsgate. “With engagement of over 125 million people a day, Roku is the perfect partner to launch a more accessible compliment to the higher-priced SVODs. This service has the ability to scale quickly while providing us with a new way to monetize our content, and we’re proud to be part of this new streaming experience.”
Related: How FAST Channels Solved a Major Flaw with Streaming
As one of the earliest FAST companies, Roku has become the most popular distributor of the service, beating out rivals Pluto and Tubi. 2024 was an incredible year for the platform, with total revenue for the year topping $4 billion and streaming hours increasing 82% from 2023.
“We continue to make progress growing ad demand through deeper third-party platform integrations, improving the Roku Experience (which starts at our Home Screen) to expand monetization, and growing Roku-billed subscriptions,” Roku said in its 2024 Q4 letter to shareholders. “As we look ahead, we see clear paths to growing our KPMs of Streaming Hours, Platform revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, and Free Cash Flow. In addition, we expect to be operating income positive for full year 2026.”
The popularity of services like Roku comes as paid streaming services continue to hike their prices on a regular basis. Furthermore, many who subscribe to these services now opt for an ad-supported plan to reduce the price they pay, eliminating the advantage streaming has traditionally had over ad-supported services like Roku – which are free.
While it remains to be seen how successful Howdy will be, it is interesting for an ad-supported company eliminate ads in an era where most streaming services are doing the opposite.
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